Skating on the Doldrums this afternoon was surprisingly good- let’s say 3.5 stars. The temperature was about 7C when I started at 2PM, which had converted the surface into wet granular- millimeter scale chunks of ice saturated with water. This provided good edge control and surprisingly good glide even with cheap hydrocarbon wax. The snow was about as clean as could be expected, and I found no decrease in glide with time. The skate lane surface was flat, and tree debris was minimal (in part because there aren’t many pine trees overhanging the parkway here). Classic tracks were visible but very shallow and indistinct. Although this was spring skiing, conditions were quite different to what we usually encounter when the season ends in April, probably because the sun is much less intense now. When I skied from shade into sunshine I didn’t find suction grabbing my skis. Apart from a couple of bare patches on the sections most exposed to the sun, snow coverage was fairly uniform across the parkway. The base is very thin, and without fresh snow the season won’t last much longer, but for now there is still skiing available when temperatures reach about 5C and the icy base softens.